SAI Weekly 25 - 25: BYD vs. Tesla, US Car Ownership Needs Disruption, D2 Go Electric in the Middle Kingdom in a BIG WAY
Another week, another great example of Legacy Auto not understanding the market they are launching a new vehicle in.
I highlighted last week the Reuters article from Nick Carey and Norihiko Shirouzu that drills down on the speed at which change, specifically engineering change(s) are implemented at China EV Inc and the impossible task for legacy auto being able to keep up.
This week I wanted to offer a different example – one of a legacy automaker that has been doing business in the US for 75 years. The guys at the WSJ, in particular friends of Sino Auto Insights Sean McClain and Stephen Wilmot combine to write the story about how the launch of the ID.Buzz, aka the 21st century VW Bus was bobbled and dropped by the folks in Wolfsburg.
Here are two key stats that basically doomed it to failure. MSRP: $60K & Range: 250 miles. Click the link above to read about all the gory details.
This week, Detroit is hosting the Reindustrialize Conference and a bunch of afterparties of which I stopped by a few last night and will head to a couple tonight. The above shot is a snap I took last night atop the Monarch Club where Alex Roy hosted his Human Driven soirée sponsored by Assembly Ventures. Great venue and great party, no music, no fuss, lots of room to move around. I was able to grab a few great cocktails, meet some great founders and catch up with a few folks I’d not seen in a few months.
Thanks Alex for the invite and Chris Thomas and the Assembly Ventures team for the drinks!
The building in front of Ford Field is the Detroit Athletic Club, another great venue in DT Detroit. A lot of out of towners in the D and they came away pretty impressed. I think there’s still this old skool thought of Detroit being this not safe place. There are still pockets, but there are also really great rehab’d places as well, come check it out if you’re curious.
I also spent the last weekend in St. Joes. My son had a lax tournament, so we got to spend a few hours on a Lake Michigan beach. My youngest really enjoyed wading in the water and hanging on the beach so we’ll have to get him more of that in the near future.
Tesla unveils two new(ish) vehicles for the China market.
A long range Model 3+, likely it’s longest range M3.
A Model Y L. This is effectively a long wheelbase version of the Y. With three rows. It’s effectively 20cm’s longer than their normal version. That’s about 8 inches for those American readers.
This will help them with sales at the margins, but is really like throwing a band-aid on a cut that needs several stitches.
INTERVIEWED / QUOTED
I highlighted the great Reuters piece last week about how China EV Inc laps legacy auto in product development so its only fair that I highlight another great piece, this time by our friends at the FT.
This one specifically highlights the differences between Tesla and BYD. It details how BYD came from behind, including being a joke to Elon just a few years ago to now becoming the defacto global leader in BEVs and NEVs for that matter. I spoke with Ed for this article so I have a small quote but time was taken for this article so it’s definitely one I’d reco to read (if it’s not behind a paywall), you can find it here.
BY THE NUMBERS
I had to throw this section up top since there are some really important numbers that need chewing on.
Halftime score: 6.937M vs. 6.593M
ENORMOUS MILESTONE: For the first time EVER, NEV passenger vehicle sales surpassed ICE passenger vehicle sales in the China market. This puts an AMAZING amount of pressure on foreign automakers that sell into China since it won’t allow them to straddle for very long. Not as long as they want to compete in the China market.
Will they commit to NEV development globally or will they divide their attentions AND their capital expenditures / R&D spending on BOTH BEV / EREV / PHEV AND ICE engine development? How long can that last before they’re stuck in NO MAN’s Land?
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BYD: 21%, Tesla: 8% - that’s how much market share each has currently in the China market. Let’s make this easier for those that are mathematically challenged. 1 of ever 5 cars currently sold in China is a BYD / Denza / Fang Cheng Bao / Yangwang, but mostly BYD.
That may not sound that impressive until you also recall that there are over 160 brands currently for sale in China. Chinese consumers have so much choice. As fledging brands fail, BYD will get even stronger in China.
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14.5 years. That’s the average age of a passenger vehicle in the U.S. currently. Reading this Dan Neil piece for the WSJ is really depressing. An even more depressing number – the average cost to own and operate a vehicle last year: $12,296!
After reading this article – I am not sure what to think …except that the pendulum seems like it should be swinging back soon. If the D2 can’t make car ownership more affordable to the masses, I’d think ownership will only be for the rich. And that they’d likely sell a bunch of fleet style vehicles to the ridehailing.
Oh and lastly, when I presented a few weeks back in Atlanta and talked about how cars sit most of the day and are used ~about 5% of the time, some NADA guy got pretty offended and protested loudly that HE used his car much, much more than that. Total BULLSHIT. NADA could be part of the solution if they wanted to be, but they don’t seem to want to be. But back to the BS part - According to Dan Neil – car owners spend about an hour a day in their cars. Let’s do some simple math.
Folks are awake 16 – 17 hours / day according to the CDC (and ChatGPT). 1 hr / 16 hrs = 6.25%
…so I was wrong, but not by much.
PODCASTS
China EVs & More 216: We’ll be live tomorrow, 9am ET for those interested in joining and asking questions. Find us on X, LinkedIn and YouTube.
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: Episode #4 was hosted yesterday.It was a livestream with Nick Carey, who details his experience and gives us a bit more background on the article he and Nori wrote re: China’s speed. Lot’s of good insight and we received a ton of great feedback from the audience as well, link below:
BIGGEST NEWS THIS WEEK
Supersizing the reshoring. MP Materials gets an enormous $400M investment from the Department of Defense to reshore rare earth mining and high-powered magnet manufacturing. This is a HUGE deal, both for MP and for the US. With the backdrop of the Reindustrialization Conference launching yesterday in Detroit, the timing on this seems very serendipitous.
This is what has always needed to happen. The US govt needs to put its thumb on the scale to jumpstart some of this reshoring. What’s key is that we stay focused on the key materials / components / products / technologies that need to be reshored or stay here. Rare earth minerals and the magnets that use them is one I’d agree needs to be one of them.
We could argue whether or not this makes MP a pseudo-govt entity (it does), but why does that matter unless it means they adopt the govt bureaucracy along with the capital? It doesn’t – what’s key here is that (hopefully) we will see more transactions like these that allow for other key commodities to be reshored and approvals for factories, mining and refining facilities to be fast-tracked so that output from them comes sooner than later.
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The Americans going NEV in the Middle Kingdom, but not in the Beautiful Country. The D2 announced NEVs this week, but not for the North American market. For those wondering, Middle Kingdom and Beautiful Country are direct translations of China & the US from Mandarin to English.
First, Buick announced a large sedan EREV under the recently unveiled sub-brand Electra. The Electra L7 has about the same footprint as the Model S (it sits a bit lower). This is the first Buick that’ll feature LiDAR for use with Momenta’s Intelligent Driving system. Momenta made a BIG splash at AutoShanghai2025 announcing several partnerships – GM, Merc, Toyota, Honda and others. GM invested $300M in Momenta in 2021.
My guess is that production will start sometime in Q3’25.
Core specs:
- 5 seater
- 507HP
- Snapdragon 8775 chip
- BEV version upcoming
- Estimated MSRP: ¥250K ($34,800)
- Battery supplier: Zenergy (battery size not specified)
Not to be outdone, Ford will be launching BEV & EREV versions of one of its best products, the Bronco. Expect it to start shipping to customers in CQ4’25.
- 5 seater
- 311HP
- Snapdragon 8775 chip
- BEV version upcoming
- Estimated MSRP: ¥250K ($34,800)
- Battery supplier: BEV = 105.4kWh LFP blade battery pack from BYD (pretty big battery), EREV = 43.7kWh for 220km for a total range = 1,220km (732 miles)
Now we are talking! The D2 have a PULSE in China. This tracks with all the other foreign legacies in China completely making over their product lineups to better suit the demands of the Chinese customer.
The Bronco should do well – there’s a bit of a following for it in China and for an ICE vehicle, it attracted quite the crowd at AutoShanghai2025.
As for Buick, they will be launching 4 (total of 6) more NEVs within the next 12 months for the China market. They already launched the small Electra E5 crossover in June.
These aren’t likely to be exported to the US unfortunately, now due to the tariffs in place. BUT I don’t think the D2 would’ve exported them even if the tariffs weren’t in place. At least that’s the feeling I got when I was in Shanghai last.
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EREV ≠ PHEV. For those still wondering what the difference between a PHEV and an EREV is, there’s a decent primer from our friends at McKinsey that you can check out here. One BIG difference for EREVs, their engines are normally pretty small and they NEVER power the wheels, the engine is used to recharge the battery pack. EREVs will be the bridge for many to get to a BEV since more and more of them will be able to get to 1K km on a single charge / tank.
Some believe since it still drinks petrol that it’s not clean, but it’s better than an ICE vehicle.
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Jensen gets some good news for his most recent visit to Beijing. He’ll be able to sell his H20 chips to China, albeit a China spec. He’s been to China now a few times this year and knows that his and Nvidia’s fortunes rely heavily on the China market. Will the US govt cooperate for him, that seems unlikely.
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This weekly newsletter is a collection of articles we feel best reflect the happenings of the week or important trends that have effects on the global automotive and mobility sectors. We also provide a point of view that we hope educates and sparks debate.
The Sino Auto Insights team
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